<nettime> if you hum a few freedoms, i could fake it digest [x5]

[nettime's_dusty_archivist <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Re: <nettime> Oh! "Freedom!" (27 times) and al Qaeda
     t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
     "stevphen shukaitis" <stevphen@greenpeppermagazine.org>
     Benjamin Geer <ben@socialtools.net>
     ernie yacub <yacinfo@mars.ark.com>
     Mathieu O'Neil <oneil@homemail.com.au>

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Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 18:46:21 -0500
From: t byfield <tbyfield@panix.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Oh! "Freedom!" (27 times) and al Qaeda

mgoldh@well.com (Sat 01/22/05 at 03:05 AM -0500):

>  I don't know why bin Laden has it in for office buildings, but since 
> he cut his teeth in the guerilla war against the soviets in 
> Afghanistan, and since he has made it clear he believes he brought down 
> the USSR through that, it's quite clear he has now focussed on the 
> remaining "western" superpower. 

He told us why, in the tape broadcast the day before the election: 

     So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and
     shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision
     was taken, for you to consider. I say to you, Allah knows that it
     had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it
     became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of
     the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine
     and Lebanon, it came to my mind. The events that affected my soul
     in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the
     Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped
     them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and
     injured and others were terrorized and displaced. I couldn't
     forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and
     children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their
     occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets
     raining down on our home without mercy. [...] And as I looked at
     those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we
     should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy
     towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted
     and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

Analogy -- of a kind that seems pretty common among self-consciously 
pious students of ancient religious writings, for whom correlating the
world now with image-laden texts is rule number one. OBL makes a similar 
analogies elsewhere in the talk, but sometimes they come off as what 
they are -- forced:

     But because it seemed to him [Bush] that occupying himself by
     talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was
     more important than occupying himself with the planes and their
     butting of the skyscrapers.

Cryptome has a number of translations, and it's worthwhile comparing
them: < http://cryptome.org/us-eu-gap.htm >. 

Cheers,
T

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Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 18:40:45 +0100 (CET)
Subject: Re: <nettime> Oh! 'Freedom!' (27 times) and al Qaeda
From: "stevphen shukaitis" <stevphen@greenpeppermagazine.org>

I agree it's asburd - but it's only absurd because it departs from the
notion one holds of what "freedom" really is. you could say the pretty
much the same thing for the way people talk about "free" markets, rolling
back taxes as a form of "relief," or that way that privatizing social
security is being touted as creating an "ownership society."

it would seem to the more interesting task would not be to constantly
dismiss the way that these words are used in political discourse but
rather to look at the way they are used, how they create frames of
meanings (to use Lakoff's terms), and what kind of frames would be
constructed to counter or work against the ideas put forth and frame them
in a different manner - rather just being dismissive and falling back and
assumed framework of meaning for the usage of the word freedom or anythin=
g
else for that matter.

cheers
stevphen

> According to NPR, Pres. Bush said the word "freedom"  27 times in his
> 21-minute inaugural speech yesterday ? an excellent example of
> misleading framing (in the sense recently popularized by George
> Lakoff).
 <...>

stevphen shukaitis
Guest Editor, "Life Beyond the Market" issue
www.greenpeppermagazine.org

Greenpepper Magazine
CIA Office
Overtoom 301
1054 HW
Amsterdam
The Netherlands
UK Phone: +44 (0)870 0156097
Phone: +31 (0)20 779 4912
AIM: foucaultisdead

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Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 17:44:47 +0000
From: Benjamin Geer <ben@socialtools.net>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Oh! "Freedom!" (27 times) and al Qaeda

Michael H Goldhaber wrote:
> I have previously speculated that al Qaeda was interested in 
> attacking the World Trade Center because they were confused by the 
> name

Bin Laden's strategy is indeed sheer horrifying madness, but it's a 
different sort of madness from the one you suggest.

On one of the recent Bin Laden videotapes seen in the news, he says he 
got the idea "in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade 
Lebanon... as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered 
my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should 
destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we 
tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children."

He doesn't seem to have noticed that the US is far from deterred.

As for his military strategy, he says it's "to cause America to suffer 
human, economic, and political losses... as we, alongside the mujahidin, 
bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to 
withdraw in defeat.... So we are continuing this policy in bleeding 
America to the point of bankruptcy."

He doesn't acknowledge that the mujahidin defeated Russia in Afghanistan 
primarily thanks to US military support.  And will American military 
intervention in oil-rich countries bankrupt the US?  I have my doubts.

Full transcript:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/79C6AF22-98FB-4A1C-B21F-2BC36E87F61F.htm

Ben

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From: ernie yacub <yacinfo@mars.ark.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Oh! "Freedom!" (27 times) and al Qaeda
Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 14:04:24 -0800

speaking of misleading framing, there are a number of assumptions that need to 
be challenged...

that al qaeda, masterminded by a bearded guy in a cave hooked up to a dialysis 
machine, carried out the most successful attack on the most powerful nation 
in the world despite everybody knowing something like that was coming - the 
evidence points to pnac and "a new pearl harbor".

that al queda is an independent terrorist organization - ie that it isn't 
still an american terrorist proxy.

ernie yacub

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From: Mathieu O'Neil <oneil@homemail.com.au>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Oh! "Freedom!" (27 times) and al Qaeda
Date: Sun, 23 Jan 2005 11:14:56 +1100

I remember reading that Bin Laden declared last year that the WTC 
attack was a reaction to the revulsion he felt when the Israeli army 
knocked down some tower blocks during their 1982 invasion of Lebanon (I 
think).

mathieu

ps. "Freedom" is wonderful, of course.
POTUS should be applauded for spreading it all over.
And if he wants to focus on the Middle East: why not?
You have to start somewhere.

Unfortunately, he forgot some places...

"Freedom" for Turkmens?
"Freedom" for Libyans?
"Freedom" for Kirghiz?
"Freedom" for Pakistanis?
"Freedom" for Chechens?
"Freedom" for Egyptians?
"Freedom" for Emiratis, Saudis, etc?
"Freedom" for Palestinians?

The regimes under which these people live are all authoritarian and 
undemocratic.
But, for some strange reason, they are not suitable for "freedom".



On 22/01/2005, at 7:05 PM, Michael H Goldhaber wrote:

> According to NPR, Pres. Bush said the word "freedom"  27 times in his
> 21-minute inaugural speech yesterday ? an excellent example of
> misleading framing (in the sense recently popularized by George
> Lakoff).
 <...>

-- 
Dr Mathieu O'Neil
Visiting Fellow
Centre for New Media Arts (CNMA)
Peter Karmel Building
Childers St
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200 Australia

T: +61 02 6260 6124
F: +61 02 6247 0229
E: oneil@homemail.com.au
ANU new media group weblog:
http://underthesun.anu.edu.au/weblogs/underthesun/

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